Raymond Felton driving force in Knicks' success against Celtics

The Knicks are clearly Carmelo Anthony’s team, which makes the important contributions of Raymond Felton even more alluring.

It was just a year ago the debate was still on whether the Knicks would be Anthony’s team or Jeremy Lin’s team. The Knicks made their choice, letting Lin depart as a free agent and bringing the maligned Felton in to run the point.

And it’s hard to argue with the results as Anthony emerged as the leading scorer in the NBA while Felton has been an attacking complement. Linsanity is gone — and not faring so well at the start of the playoffs for Houston as Lin was exposed by the athletic Oklahoma City Thunder.

What Felton has provided for the Knicks, who lead the Celtics in the series 2-0, is an offensive force. Felton is willingly secondary to Anthony and Tuesday he was nearly flawless on both ends. Felton had 16 points on 8-of-15 shooting without a turnover, sparking a third quarter rally that turned the game around. As the series shifts to Boston for Game 3 Friday, it is the Celtics who are left to find an answer not just to Anthony, but to Felton, too.

"He’s killing us," Boston coach Doc Rivers said in a conference call Wednesday. "Getting into the paint, attacking us. Clearly, that doesn’t look well on film. We have to do a better job on that. Wish I could make a better statement. We have to keep him out of the paint."

On the defensive end he took on the task of defending Paul Pierce and with bulldog toughness, he pushed and fought and scrapped, holding the Celtics best weapon to a hard-fought 18 points on 8-of-19 shooting.

"That’s what he’s supposed to do and that’s what he’s pretty much done all year," Knicks coach Mike Woodson said. "When teams switch bigger guys on our point guard you’ve got to make him pay and it’s OK if you make a play for yourself, but you’ve got to make him pay where you can possibly make a play for your teammates as well.

"Raymond has been pretty good in that regard. It’s kind of hard not to switch a bigger guy on Raymond and Raymond not take advantage of that mismatch. I thought he did that in that third quarter when he did that."

From the time he came to the Knicks, Felton has had to live with the pressure of replacing Lin as well as trying to live down his own flawed reputation — a disastrous season in Portland last year. But he has combined with Jason Kidd and Pablo Prigioni to provide the Knicks with a steady ballhandling trio.

"Raymond’s been solid for us all year," Woodson said. "We struggled as a team when he went down. Raymond’s a big piece of this puzzle because when he’s pushing the pace and doing the things I know he can do on the floor we’re a better basketball team for it. That third quarter, I thought Raymond was the difference maker in terms of his play, and his pushing and getting the ball up the floor and getting it where it needed to go."

"It’s been great," Felton said after Tuesday’s game. "New York is probably one of the best places to play basketball. I’m not just saying because I’m here. Just the intensity, just the fans, how much they get involved into the game. It’s great. I was definitely sad and upset a little bit that I left the first time. Things happen. I’m back. It’s been great. I’m loving every moment of it."